Monday, October 18, 2004

He's Back

A while back I talked about the view out my window at work. Well, for a few weeks now I've been missing my favorite feature across the street, our waving man. Well, he's back.
A recent report discussed how his arms were slowly disappearing. Las Vegas has a pretty constant wind, not constant in that it always blows the same, but constant in that there is almost always wind blowing. Sometimes quite briskly. This wind tends to blow things around and away. In addition to the wind is our beautiful sunshine. I like the view behind him - from Belagio in Italy on the right past Paris and New York and on to the Egyptian pyramid. (update - sorry, looking out the window I realize that the Eifel tower and the Belagio are off the photo to the right. But at least you can see from New York through Excaliber to the Pyramid.)
Waving man fell prey to both features. The sun breaks down everything left outside, and the wind helps by physically breaking it up. So our waving man lost his arms.
He's been gone for two weeks, and in that time he's grown quite a bit. His arms are back, longer than ever, and his legs are also much longer. Now when he waves his arms are higher than the roof of his building. But the longer legs seem to make him a little unstable. With even the slightest wind he seems to be doing some strange dance, where he leans over backward and touches his head to the ground. But I guess if you are that tall it is something to do to keep from being bored.
My wife has been volunteering for some activities around town. A while ago she started working with the Habitat for Humanity, helping to build a house near central Las Vegas. Last Saturday she went out to Henderson (just east) and put in a day on a new house out there. One of the local builders arranged for a large crew to show up, and they put up all of the walls in just the one day. Here's a shot of the last piece going in.
Seems like a nice thing to do - even Jimmy Carter is still swinging a hammer to help. I guess it's a concrete thing to do that shows results. I had helped at a homeless shelter in San Diego that tried to help people learn how to get and hold a job, which seemed a lot more useful than having a prayer and a sandwich.

I've got a whole segment on Las Vegas conventions, but part 2 of the Farscape return is about to come on, so not tonight -

But here are some blogs that I came across while wandering. These are probably more amusing to the women out there, but I did find them interesting.
Annwn talks about why women go to the restroom in pairs. Something I didn't really want to know about, and why you don't sit down.
The Lioness discusses her cat's trips to the restroom. She writes well, be sure to look on down the posts for the cat stuff.
And there is someone out there who is A Little Pregnant. Her amusing tale is about selected
body parts that tend to grow during pregnancy. It sounds somewhat interesting, but leads me to feel that Pandora Peaks (from last week's post) isn't all that unusual.